The study found that airport business travelers are connecting via Wi-Fi for a significant amount of time: Eighty-one percent spend over 30 minutes online while waiting for their flight, and 32 percent spend over an hour online.

Seventy-two percent of the airport audience is business travelers with highly desirable demographics:

• Fifty percent travel at least once a month.
• Over half hold an executive or management position.
• Over half have annual household incomes of over $100,000.
• Seventy-five percent of all airport Wi-Fi customers plan to make a big- ticket purchase in the next 12 months.

"Business travelers are a highly coveted audience for both business and consumer-oriented advertisers due to their purchasing power, but are traditionally very difficult to reach," said David Staas, senior vice president, marketing of JiWire. "Our latest Insights report provides more in-depth information for marketers about this nationwide audience, as well as highlighting global trends as Wi-Fi continues to become the preferred method for on-the-go connectivity."

Mobile devices

Continuing the trend seen in the first half of the year, the use of mobile devices to connect to Wi-Fi locations grew 75 percent in Q3. The top mobile devices remain the iPhone and iPod Touch, which combined make up about 95 percent of mobile ad requests. Devices built on the Android-operating system emerged in the number four spot, while the Palm Pre continued to see growth and remained ranked at number five, similar to last quarter.

Public Wi-Fi locations on the rise

The report shows the overall number of public Wi-Fi locations is growing rapidly, with 18.8 percent year-to-date expansion in worldwide public Wi-Fi hotspot locations. In the last five years, the number of Wi-Fi locations has grown by 425 percent.

In addition to growth in locations, people are using Wi-Fi on an increasing basis, with visits to U.S. locations increasing 11.4 percent quarter over quarter. Hotels continue to have the largest amount of Wi-Fi visits with 65.5 percent market share, while airports were the quickest growing venue in Q3 2009, with visits up 23.2 percent over last quarter.

By Robert Hoskins

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